Animist

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Details

Category: Classes

Published on Friday, 06 November 2009 05:00

Written by Charles Wenzler

Animists are living avatars the elements; air earth, fire and water. Without the elements, there could be no life; which is sometimes thought of as the fifth element. Animists have the powers of nature at their disposal and are also able to protect and heal those that find themselves in need of her services.

Alignment: any

Hit Die: d8

Class Skills

Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Fly (Dex), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (Arcana) (Int), Knowledge (Geography) (Int), Knowledge (Nature) (Int), Perception (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Cha), Spellcraft (Int), Survival (Wis)

Skill Ranks Per Level: 4 + Int modifier

Level	Base Attack	Fort	Ref	Will	Special Abilities
1st	+0	+2	+0	+2	Nature Sense, Percipience
2nd	+1	+3	+0	+3	Touch of Life, Wild Empathy
3rd	+2	+3	+1	+3	Gaia’s Grace, Spirit Shield
4th	+3	+4	+1	+4	Elemental Invocation
5th	+3	+4	+1	+4	Elemental Resistance (+2)
6th	+4	+5	+2	+5	Elemental Invocation
7th	+5	+5	+2	+5	Craft Wicker Totem
8th	+6/+1	+6	+2	+6	Elemental Resistance (+4)
9th	+6/+1	+6	+3	+6	Elemental Invocation
10th	+7/+2	+7	+3	+7
11th	+8/+3	+7	+3	+7	Elemental Resistance (+6)
12th	+9/+4	+8	+4	+8	Elemental Invocation
13th	+9/+4	+8	+4	+8	Spiritform
14th	+10/+5	+9	+4	+9	Elemental Resistance (+8)
15th	+11/+6/+1	+9	+5	+9	Elemental Invocation
16th	+12/+7/+2	+10	+5	+10
17th	+12/+7/+2	+10	+5	+10	Elemental Resistance (+10)
18th	+13/+8/+3	+11	+6	+11	Elemental Invocation
19th	+14/+9/+4	+11	+6	+11	Speak to the Soul
20th	+15/+10/+5	+12	+6	+12	Spiritual Transcendence

Class Features

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Animists are proficient with all simple weapons, light armor, medium armor, and shields (except tower shields)

Nature Sense (Ex): The animist gains a +2 bonus on Knowledge (Nature) and Survival checks.

Percipience (Su): Animists can see and hear nature spirits otherwise imperceptible to mortals (unless a spirit wishes to show itself). The character finds this ability disconcerting at first, because it makes her realize how pervasive spirits are; they are everywhere, all the time – although only rarely do they pay attention to the actions of mortals. Animists that are alerted to danger due to upset or absent nature spirits can not be caught flat-footed.

Orisons: Animists can prepare a number of orisons, or 0-level spells, each day, as noted on the class table shown above under “Spells per Day.” These spells are cast like any other spell, but they are not expended when cast and may be used again.

Spells: Animists cast divine spells which are drawn from the Animist and Animist spell lists (see below). Animists must choose and prepare her spells in advance. To prepare or cast a spell, the animist must have a Charisma score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against an animist's spell is 10 + the spell level + the animist's Charisma modifier. Like other spellcasters, an animist can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. Her base daily spell allotment is shown on the above class table. In addition, she receives bonus spells per day if she has a high Charisma score (see Table 1-3 in the Pathfinder Core Rulebook). Animists must meditate for their spells and must choose a time when she is to spend 1 hour of each day to regain her daily allotment of spells. The animist may prepare and cast any spell on the Cleric and Druid spell list, provided that she can cast spells of that level, but she must choose which spells to prepare during her daily meditation.

	Spells Per Day
Level	0	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th
1st	3	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2nd	4	2	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
3rd	4	2	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
4th	4	3	2	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
5th	4	3	2	1	-	-	-	-	-	-
6th	4	3	3	2	-	-	-	-	-	-
7th	4	4	3	2	1	-	-	-	-	-
8th	4	4	3	3	2	-	-	-	-	-
9th	4	4	4	3	2	1	-	-	-	-
10th	4	4	4	3	3	2	-	-	-	-
11th	4	4	4	4	3	2	1	-	-	-
12th	4	4	4	4	3	3	2	-	-	-
13th	4	4	4	4	4	3	2	1	-	-
14th	4	4	4	4	4	3	3	2	-	-
15th	4	4	4	4	4	4	3	2	1	-
16th	4	4	4	4	4	4	3	3	2	-
17th	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	3	2	1
18th	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	3	3	2
19th	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	3	3
20th	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4

Touch of Life (Su): At 2nd level the animist can heal someone that is wounded with a touch. Each day she can cure a total number of hit points equal to her Charisma bonus (if any) times her level. The animist can cure herself. She may choose to divide this curing among multiple recipients and doesn’t have to use it all at once. Using this ability is a standard action. Since it involves positive energy, the animist can use this ability to damage undead for as many points as she normally would heal a living creature.

Wild Empathy (Ex): The animist can improve the attitude of an animal. This ability functions just like a Diplomacy check made to improve the attitude of a person (see Using Skills). The animist rolls 1d20 and adds her class level and her Charisma modifier to determine the wild empathy check result. The typical domestic animal has a starting attitude of indifferent, while wild animals are usually unfriendly. To use wild empathy, the animist and the animal must be within 30 feet of one another under normal conditions. Generally, influencing an animal in this way takes 1 minute but, as with influencing people, it might take more or less time. The animist can also use this ability to influence a magical beast with an Intelligence score of 1 or 2, but she takes a –4 penalty on the check.

Gaia’s Grace (Su): At 3rd level the animist gains a bonus equal to her Charisma modifier (if any) on all saving throws.

Spirit Shield (Su): At 3rd level the animist is able to call froth a shield formed from her own soul to protect her a number of times per day equal to 3 + her Charisma modifier. The spirit functions exactly like a shield of faith.

Elemental Invocation (Su): At 4th level the animist is able to invoke the spell-like granted powers from the Air, Earth, Fire & Water Cleric domains a total number of times per day equal to her Charisma modifier +3. The animist can freely choose which domain spell-like granted power to invoke when using this class feature. At 6th level and every three levels thereafter, the animist gains one additional daily use of this class ability per day.

Craft Wicker Totem (Ex): At 7th level the animist is able to create a wicker totem by taking the hair clippings and the blood of a willing person. The hair and blood is mixed with straw and the animist creates a wicker totem in a process taking 8 hours to complete. The totem can then be used as a focus in the animists spells, allowing her to use spells with a range of touch on the person without actually having to make physical contact with them. The animist can only have a number of wicker totems that she is able to use equal to one-quarter her class level +1. Any new wicker totems she creates replace older wicker totems.

Elemental Resistance (Ex): Whenever the animist is the target of any spell with the acid, cold, electricity, fire, force or sonic descriptors she gains a +2 resistance bonus on her saving throw against it. This bonus increases by +2 at 8th level and every three levels thereafter, to a maximum of +10 at 17th level.

Spiritform (Su): At 13th level the animist is able to assume spiritform allowing her to become incorporeal for one round per class level. This ability is usable a number of times per day equal to her Charisma modifier +3.

Speak to the Soul (Su): At 19th level the animist is able to understand whatever people say to hear no matter which language they speak it in. In addition when the animist speaks, the listener always knows exactly what the animist is saying no matter which language the animist speaks in. The animist is able to even able to speak with and comprehend undead, so long as its soul is still bound to its body.

Spiritual Transcendence (Su): At 20th level, the animist becomes ascends to a higher state and becomes a magical creature. She is forevermore treated as an outsider with the native subtype rather than as a humanoid (or whatever the animist’s creature type was) for the purpose of spells and magic effects. In addition, her transcended state grants her immunity to spells and spell-like abilities that utilize negative energy.

Author's Note: I realize that the original animist breaks the mold on traditional spellcasting and may be overpowered. I reworked the class with the traditional spellcasting sytem in mind and did my best to balance this class based off the druid.

Additional Ratings
Balance:	1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Rating 3.33 (9 Votes)
Utility:	1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Rating 3.63 (8 Votes)
Clarity:	1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Rating 3.50 (8 Votes)

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